What was here?
Where Mason Cottages and the 1960s houses of Orphanage Road now stand, Josiah Mason’s Orphanage rose above Erdington: a three-storey brick building with a central tower about 200 feet high, set in 13 acres of playgrounds, gardens and fields.
History
In 1858 Josiah Mason opened a small home for orphan girls beside his almshouses in Erdington village. It filled at once. In 1860 he decided to build something on a different scale, and on 19 September he laid the foundation stone himself, privately, with no ceremony at all.
A home on the ridge
The new orphanage fronted Bell Lane, a little way behind the Birmingham to Lichfield turnpike, on high gravelly ground. A newspaper report of 1869, reprinted by Mason’s biographer J. T. Bunce, described a building with a 207-foot front to Bell Lane, in a round-arched “Lombardic” style, with carved angels on the gables and three towers. The tallest, about 200 feet high, could be seen for miles and doubled as a ventilation shaft. About three million bricks were made on the orphanage’s own land. J. R. Botham drew the elevations, but he withdrew early and Mason designed the interior himself: steam cooking, hot-water heating, a separate bed and washing place for every child, and a covered playground whose columns, the report said, were arranged with hide-and-seek in mind.
The building cost about £60,000. Mason endowed it with land worth about £200,000: 220 acres in Erdington alone, including Tyburn Farm and his own home, Norwood House, as well as Walmley Ash Farm at Sutton Coldfield, farms in Worcestershire and Warwickshire, and property in the centre of Birmingham. The trust deed was signed on 29 July 1868 and took legal effect a year later.
The children
The orphanage took children whose parents were both dead: boys aged 7 to 10, girls from 4, with “no restriction whatever as to locality, nationality, or religious persuasion,” in the words of a description of 1880. A boys’ block was added in 1874. By 1880 it could hold 300 girls, 150 boys and 50 infants, and 535 children had passed through it. Thirty-two had died. The children were schooled on site, and the girls were taught sewing, cooking, washing and other household work.
The same spot, then and now
1888–1913
Today
Old map: Ordnance Survey six-inch, reproduced with the permission of the National Library of Scotland (CC BY 4.0). Today: © OpenStreetMap contributors.
When Mason died in 1881 he was buried, at his own wish, in the vault beneath a mausoleum in the grounds, beside his wife. About 350 of the older orphans joined the procession from Norwood House.
The twentieth century
In 1919 the orphanage was certified as a school able to take children boarded out by the Poor Law authorities, and in the 1920s and 1930s its choir sang on BBC radio. Over time the numbers declined. The trustees closed the orphanage around 1960, judging the building out of date and too expensive to keep, and it was demolished in 1964. Before it went, Mason’s remains, his wife’s and those of 53 children who had died there were disinterred, cremated and scattered at Perry Barr Crematorium. The land was sold for housing, and the proceeds went towards homes for older people elsewhere.
What happened here?
Then Josiah Mason’s Orphanage (foundation stone 1860, occupied 1868), for up to 500 orphans, with Mason’s mausoleum in its grounds.
What happened Closed around 1960 and demolished in 1964; Mason’s remains and those of 53 children were removed and cremated.
Why The trustees thought the building out of date and too costly to maintain.
What replaced it Housing; the Trust kept the corner occupied by Mason Cottages.
Now Orphanage Road, with Mason Cottages and Mason’s bronze bust on the Chester Road island nearby.
Why it mattered
One man paid for and endowed it, with sums that, in Bill Dargue’s words, staggered his contemporaries, and it tied Mason’s name to Erdington for good. For nearly a century its tower was the landmark of the Erdington ridge.
Why it disappeared
Redevelopment · Condition of the building
The trustees judged the building “outdated and expensive to maintain” and closed the orphanage (1960 according to the Trust); it was demolished in 1964 and most of the site sold for housing (Sir Josiah Mason Trust; Bill Dargue).
Sir Josiah Mason’s Orphanage, on today’s streets
What’s there now
What replaced it
Housing along and behind Orphanage Road. The Sir Josiah Mason Trust kept a small part of the site, with 36 almshouse bungalows of the 1920s now called Mason Cottages.
What survives
Nothing of the building. The street name Orphanage Road (formerly Bell Lane), Mason Cottages on part of the site, and the bronze bust of Mason (1952) on the Chester Road island.
Today
Orphanage Road, Erdington, with Mason Cottages (private grounds) and post-war housing.
Then and now
Then · 1880
Now · 6 January 2010
Key dates
- 1868 (trust deed 29 July 1868) — Josiah Mason’s Orphanage opens in ErdingtonMason’s great orphanage on Bell Lane, begun in 1860, took in its first children, and on 29 July 1868 he handed it to trustees with land worth about £200,000. It was paid for and endowed entirely by him.
- 1964 — Josiah Mason’s Orphanage demolishedThe trustees demolished Mason’s orphanage at Erdington, judging it out of date and too costly to maintain. Mason’s remains, and those of his wife and 53 children buried in the grounds, were removed and cremated. Most of the land became housing.
Sources and further reading
Closure: the Trust gives 1960 and Peter Higginbotham 1964; demolition in 1964 is agreed. Tower height: Bunce’s source gives 200 feet; Wikipedia’s 250 feet is not supported. Capacity figures differ (Higginbotham: a boys’ block for 120 in 1874; Dent: 150). The exact footprint has not been plotted from old Ordnance Survey maps, so the point is approximate. The orphanage school’s later history (Chester Road County Primary from 1950, then Yenton School, according to Bill Dargue) has not been checked.
- Josiah Mason: a biography — John Thackray Bunce, Simpkin, Marshall & Co.; Cornish Brothers, Birmingham, 1882. ch. 5
- Old and New Birmingham: a history of the town and its people — Robert K. Dent, Houghton and Hammond, Birmingham, 1880. pp. 590–591
- Josiah Mason’s Orphanage, Erdington, Birmingham, Warwickshire — Peter Higginbotham, Children’s Homes (childrenshomes.org.uk)
- Founder’s Day 2025 — Sir Josiah Mason Trust, 2025
- Birmingham Heritage Week – a potted history of almshouses — Sir Josiah Mason Trust
- Sir Josiah Mason Trust — history — MY Trust
- Erdington — History of Birmingham Places & Placenames A to Y — Bill Dargue
- Mason, Sir Josiah — Dictionary of National Biography, vol. 36 — George Clement Boase, Smith, Elder & Co., 1893
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